I don't think Rafi or Homer are good candidates based on their career length, they will be retiring not so long after Lids. Z, Dats, Kron, and Flip would be my guess.

My personal opinion would be their career lengths argue towards why they should be captains of the team, not why they shouldn't. Sure it'd be short term, but you can't argue they both aren't leaders. Their veteran status' and skill both scream assistant captain to me, much more so than Val and Kron. They are heck of guys and will have their day if they stay with the team.

I guess it just comes down to what people think is more important in terms of being a captain.

Its a mixture between leadership,skill,seniority. I think it should be a mixture between all 3 when looking to sew the letters on a jersey.

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Stop nailing the OP for the idea of the best 2-way forward in the entire world to be the Captain. All that said, we know that Hank is the next Captain of the best sports franchise in the universe. Someone go ahead and "attack" my username we all know the truth. No more telling of a picture than the one of Stevie, Kenny, and Hank in 1 picture. I think they already decided a few years back especially in the Cup run year of '08. But hey, I am a double threat guy with user name and avatar! OH NOOZZZZZZ

Near future Assistant will be Pav obviously and Kronner. Not too many other candidates for it imo. Mule could be a fill-in but even then I'd say give it to Flip. This is actually a good discussion, real surprised at the backlash this received.

Love it... People putting all sorta words in my mouth. I'm "bashing the OP", I'm against "the best 2-way forward in the entire world to be the Captain"... HA.

I was simply pointing out that the OP, with a name and avatar based on Datsyuk, came up with the brain straining idea that Datsyuk could be the next captain. < sarcasm> I'm guessing it was a really hard choice on his part. His extremely long opening post with extended explanation of his opinion and how he arrived at it really gave the reader a lot to consider and debate about. < /sarcasm> His responses make it sound like I was crucifying him. He really hasn't done anything for me to truly be annoyed at him. So maybe you all should take things a bit less personally.

As to the subject of the thread... I wouldn't be heartbroken if Dats got the "C". However, short of catastrophic injury, there's no question that Z will be next captain. It's the reason why he has the longest contract in team history, and used to sit next to Yzerman in the locker room.

Where the media is concerned, I don't think it's a good idea because his English isn't that good. I mean, it's not like he couldn't get better, but to me it seems like it'd be a big stress on you having to face the media every game and getting frustrated because you don't know exactly what you want to say. I'd rather he just focused on playing his awesome game and didn't have to worry about that. Also, from all outward appearances, Zetterberg is more of a "natural" leader. That's not to say that Datsyuk couldn't be a good leader - I mean, Yzerman wasn't the most outgoing guy ever, and we know how that turned out - but Z's kinda already been trained for it and is used to talking to the media a lot. It's hard to say what goes on in the locker room, of course, but since he is being primed for the job, I imagine Babs & co. see those intangible things everybody's talking about present in Z, and they know he's going to do a good job. That's enough for me. I mean, if they thought Datsyuk would make a great captain, I'd be fine with that, too, but I am a little glad they're just going to let him do his thing and not have to worry about everybody else, too.